


Into the West

by tirsynni



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Deathfic, M/M, Reunion Fic, but fluffy deathfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2014-11-28
Packaged: 2018-02-27 08:51:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2686709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tirsynni/pseuds/tirsynni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the way to the Undying Lands, Bilbo Baggins hears the song of adventure and home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the West

Frodo’s hand stroked through his white curls as the ship rocked soothingly around them. Bilbo thought his darling nephew was singing something, something achingly familiar, and he hummed along even as he struggled to remember the words. Dratted old age. He swore it was like it had come all at once.

How odd. That didn’t sound like Frodo’s voice.

Oh! Bilbo recognized the song now. How silly, forgetting that song. Had he written down the lyrics? How fitting for Frodo to sing this song on their latest adventure. His clever, clever nephew.

Obligingly, Bilbo sang along. “The winds were moaning in the night…the fire was red…”

Oh, how he missed this song. He hadn’t sung it in years, really.

Frodo kept singing, but he swore it didn’t sound like his nephew. Ah, he was getting sleepy. That was probably it. He was so tired.

“…it flaming spread. The trees like torches blazed with light…”

The ship rocked and rocked, Frodo’s soft and cool on his forehead. No. Warm. So warm. Calloused.

Bilbo didn’t remember closing his eyes. The hand didn’t stop, moving from his forehead and pushing through his curls.

“The bells were ringing in the dale,” the warm voice sang, and Bilbo relaxed under the song’s spell, “and men looked up with faces pale.”

Bilbo didn’t remember writing all this, but that was all right. He knew the words. Not opening his eyes, he sang along. “The dragon’s ire, more fierce than fire, laid low their towers and houses frail.”

The ship’s rocking slowed, as if soothed as well by the old song. Bilbo remembered now. He remembered the night when Frodo joined him in his beloved hobbit hole, singing him to sleep and then singing himself to sleep later. He remembered earlier, the first time he heard it, Thorin’s voice drifting through the dark…all their voices…

As if called, more voices joined in. “The mountain smoked beneath the moon.”

Bilbo knew those voices. Oh, how he knew those voices.

“The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom. They fled the hall to dying fall beneath his feet, beneath the moon.”

Bilbo knew those voices and he knew those words, and energized in a way he hadn’t felt since he left the Shire for the last time, he raised his voice in song. Those beloved voices rose in response.

“Far over the Misty Mountains grim to dungeons deep and caverns dim, we must away, ere break of day, to wi our harps and gold from him.”

The warm hand paused on Bilbo’s forehead, a large thumb idly rubbing Bilbo’s temple. Bilbo opened his eyes to the flicker of candlelight and Thorin’s dark eyes.

“Far over the Misty Mountains cold, to dungeons deep and caverns old,” they finished.

Bilbo laughed, delighted with the song he couldn’t express the first time he heard it. That hadn’t been proper, hadn’t been proper at all! Neither was the way Thorin silenced him with his mouth now nor the way Fili and Kili cheered behind him.

Thorin nipped his bottom lip and pulled back far enough to speak. “Odd Hobbit,” he murmured, and his beard and mustache tickled. Bilbo wrinkled his nose.

“Frustrating Dwarf,” Bilbo countered, and he recognized Thorin’s voice but barely recognized his own. He caught sight of the young princes over Thorin’s shoulder, and was that Oin and Ori? Balin? Really?

“Trust you to find the One Ring of Sauron, Mr. Boggins,” Kili teased, and suddenly Bilbo realized he wasn’t dreaming. He felt the heat of Thorin’s hand still cupping his face, felt the bristles of his beard as Thorin nuzzled his face.

“Lovely loophole being a Ringbearer is,” Fili agreed, ad Bilbo didn’t realize he had begun crying until Thorin kissed his tears away. “We’re just waiting for the rest of our company and then we’re off to be reborn. Maybe Mahal will let you be a Dwarf this time around!”

Thorin wrapped his arms around Bilbo as Fili and Kili descended into an argument about the nobility of Hobbits versus Dwarves, with Ori and Balin adding their own arguments. If Thorin paid attention to their words, he gave no sign.

“I told you that you would always have a home with me,” Thorin said, and that dratted Dwarf sounded so damned smug that Bilbo had to pull back just to glare at him. Thorin grinned back, and Bilbo hadn’t seen such a beautiful sight in over sixty years.

“I was going to the Undying Lands, you know,” Bilbo informed him, sounding more fond than cross. Oh, well.

The blasted Dwarf kept grinning. Bilbo _had_ to kiss that unbearably smug expression away. “We saved you from a horrid fate then,” Thorin said immediately when Bilbo pulled back. Before he could retort, Thorin leaned down and kissed him again. He tasted like ale and sweet pipeweed. “Welcome to the Halls of Mandos, burglar.”

In the distance, Bilbo thought he heard Frodo’s voice calling. He bade Frodo a silent farewell and kissed Thorin again.

One day, he knew, they would be reunited again. In the meantime, he had waited decades for this.

“Far over,” Bilbo sang, and the others stopped arguing in time to sing along, “the Misty Mountains cold…”


End file.
